Reduced cost living - share your ideas?

[Time Waster]

About food I would say one thing ideal is one thing but reality also needs to kick in. We are not all with time to do the ideal with food such as batch cooking but especially avoiding preprepared or takeaway food.

Sometimes when you're child minding for your family and another while working from home you really don't have the time to make pizza and chips for the fussy visiting child from scratch. Besides frozen oven chips are probability cheaper than homemade these days if you buy sensibly.

Box vegetables? Premium product round here. You probably pay well over double the cost of supermarket delivered wonky veg. That's even if they deliver the boxes, the only local one I know about you collect from a local garden centre!!!

Cycle to supermarkets? We do a big, online shop at our convenience with a delivery at a time today suits us. We can pick what we need in a way where you're not tempted by actually visiting a supermarket. Then you have the efficiency involved in trucks delivering to multiple households in efficient, planned delivery runs. Much better than a traffic jam of people driving to supermarkets at least 15 minutes from where they live.

Then there's cycling, it is only feasible if we shop at Booths. They're like that John Lewis owned supermarket chain only better and possibly more expensive for your regular shop. We do buy our meat from them as that's where it's worth investing in with your food shop. I'm sick of big chain premium mince steak smelling of urine when cooking with too much water coming out of them too. We've only bought Booths meat for 10 plus years now.

Oh and don't get me started on the idea of getting better deals shopping from small shops. Working and busy families rarely have time to go to their local butchers, bakers and greengrocers even if they still exist! One place for everything you need for the household delivered effic

Phone data wise I have 4 phones on the sky basic contract with 2 GB a month, I always use more so I raid the "banked" data from the other 3 .compared to my old contracts I am basically getting one phone free

Can't do that when you're using 30Gb of data a month. That's what I was doing at the time. All because BT/openreach really didn't put enough good quality capacity into the area I lived in.

Annoyingly there's a very good local company called B4RN that offers possibly the fastest broadband to domestic properties anywhere. A member company where getting their cable into your property makes you a shareholder. Only for rural areas like I live in. Trouble is it goes from a village one side of ours, round and through a narrow band of our village to the next the other side. We got missed out on the 1000MBs download and upload speeds. That's 50 higher than the best BT openreach offering and same speed both ways unlike most broadband. Annoying to say the least. We're possible 50m to 100m off that band with the main cable young through.

 

[PaulSB]

Several people have mentioned eating fresh produce. It may be healthier but it's not cheaper, which is why the poor tend to eat less healthy diets. More here from CEDAR at Cambridge University, (full report here).
This is how the foodstuffs in my diet compare:
View attachment 641077
FSA NPS Info

As regards cost I would have to disagree with you provided we are talking seasonal produce and not "fresh" vegetables flown halfway round the world.

The reasons why households on low incomes tend to eat a less healthy diet are far more complex than the price of fresh produce.

 

[Saluki]

I recommend the Remoska. We have had one for years and now I use it more than any other kitchen appliance. Originally bought for a motorhome but now only in the home kitchen.

Good to know. I am watching a couple on eBay. If I hang on a fortnight, I can get twenty quid off at a local shop.

 

[oldwheels]

Good to know. I am watching a couple on eBay. If I hang on a fortnight, I can get twenty quid off at a local shop.

You need the grille bit that fits inside and make a kitchen foil disk to put on top of most things to stop burning.Not needed for pizza which are much quicker than anything else. Takes a little bit of learning to get the best out of it. I find about an hour seems to do most things except baking a kind of fruit cake which takes a bit longer. Not good for eggs but found no other disadvantages.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Ditch your car. Get a e-cargo bike for your shopping / utility trips. Join a car club and / or look into holidays using train. Hire a van or car for the rare times you really need one. Heat the person not the house. Either create a snug or get blankets and hot water bottles and thick jumper for the winter. Remember that central heating is a relatively modern thing. If you have Sky or Netflix TV or a mobile phone contract then ditch them.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

About food I would say one thing ideal is one thing but reality also needs to kick in. We are not all with time to do the ideal with food such as batch cooking but especially avoiding preprepared or takeaway food.

Sometimes when you're child minding for your family and another while working from home you really don't have the time to make pizza and chips for the fussy visiting child from scratch. Besides frozen oven chips are probability cheaper than homemade these days if you buy sensibly.

Box vegetables? Premium product round here. You probably pay well over double the cost of supermarket delivered wonky veg. That's even if they deliver the boxes, the only local one I know about you collect from a local garden centre!!!

Cycle to supermarkets? We do a big, online shop at our convenience with a delivery at a time today suits us. We can pick what we need in a way where you're not tempted by actually visiting a supermarket. Then you have the efficiency involved in trucks delivering to multiple households in efficient, planned delivery runs. Much better than a traffic jam of people driving to supermarkets at least 15 minutes from where they live.

Then there's cycling, it is only feasible if we shop at Booths. They're like that John Lewis owned supermarket chain only better and possibly more expensive for your regular shop. We do buy our meat from them as that's where it's worth investing in with your food shop. I'm sick of big chain premium mince steak smelling of urine when cooking with too much water coming out of them too. We've only bought Booths meat for 10 plus years now.

Oh and don't get me started on the idea of getting better deals shopping from small shops. Working and busy families rarely have time to go to their local butchers, bakers and greengrocers even if they still exist! One place for everything you need for the household delivered effic


Can't do that when you're using 30Gb of data a month. That's what I was doing at the time. All because BT/openreach really didn't put enough good quality capacity into the area I lived in.

Annoyingly there's a very good local company called B4RN that offers possibly the fastest broadband to domestic properties anywhere. A member company where getting their cable into your property makes you a shareholder. Only for rural areas like I live in. Trouble is it goes from a village one side of ours, round and through a narrow band of our village to the next the other side. We got missed out on the 1000MBs download and upload speeds. That's 50 higher than the best BT openreach offering and same speed both ways unlike most broadband. Annoying to say the least. We're possible 50m to 100m off that band with the main cable young through.

Just to say; you do not have to be a shareholder to have B4RN.

That is optional.

Our B4RN is brilliant - most villages round here have it now.

Cost £150 for the router install and connection which was fully reimbursed through a Gov' funding scheme.

Very fast, very stable and dirt cheap at £30 pm.

Are you sure the scheme cannot be extended to your location - ours covers a pretty large multi-village area.

 

[oldwheels]

Ditch your car. Get a e-cargo bike for your shopping / utility trips. Join a car club and / or look into holidays using train. Hire a van or car for the rare times you really need one. Heat the person not the house. Either create a snug or get blankets and hot water bottles and thick jumper for the winter. Remember that central heating is a relatively modern thing. If you have Sky or Netflix TV or a mobile phone contract then ditch them.

One point I would make is that the older generation may not be able to hire a car or van as any company I have heard of restricts hire to under 70 but may extend to 75. I certainly cannot hire locally.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Quite often, it's down to a) knowing what to do with ingredients, b) the actual facilities to cook stuff and c) time to cook.

Three things a number of my clients don't have, come to that, often neither do I. "Eating seasonal" requires the same three um... ingredients.

My solution has been a compromise, as is so often the way. I don't eat meat very often, occasionally chicken at the weekend or something sliced from the local version of the "yellow sticker" shelf which is more seasoning on the evening wraps.

Apart from that I eat pretty much the same every day, which I appreciate many people would find hard to live with. I've got preparation down to a fine art: pasta is boiled up once or twice a week, and used for lunch with a bought sauce in a jar or pesto, heated in the microwave at work.

Mornings are toast, evenings are usually a wrap and salad.

One of my luxuries is a tomato with the evening wrap, not super ecologically sound, but on the other hand now I've got the system working there's almost no waste: everything that comes in is eaten and I only have to empty my tiny compost bag once a week, because otherwise it would climb out of the cupboard itself; most of it is apple cores and tea bags...

 

[Oldhippy]

Three things a number of my clients don't have, come to that, often neither do I. "Eating seasonal" requires the same three um... ingredients.

My solution has been a compromise, as is so often the way. I don't eat meat very often, occasionally chicken at the weekend or something sliced from the local version of the "yellow sticker" shelf which is more seasoning on the evening wraps.

Apart from that I eat pretty much the same every day, which I appreciate many people would find hard to live with. I've got preparation down to a fine art: pasta is boiled up once or twice a week, and used for lunch with a bought sauce in a jar or pesto, heated in the microwave at work.

Mornings are toast, evenings are usually a wrap and salad.

One of my luxuries is a tomato with the evening wrap, not super ecologically sound, but on the other hand now I've got the system working there's almost no waste: everything that comes in is eaten and I only have to empty my tiny compost bag once a week, because otherwise it would climb out of the cupboard itself; most of it is apple cores and tea bags...

Have you been looking through my kitchen window? You have pretty much got my menu more or less bar the chicken. 😁

 

[Reynard]

Three things a number of my clients don't have, come to that, often neither do I. "Eating seasonal" requires the same three um... ingredients.

My solution has been a compromise, as is so often the way. I don't eat meat very often, occasionally chicken at the weekend or something sliced from the local version of the "yellow sticker" shelf which is more seasoning on the evening wraps.

Apart from that I eat pretty much the same every day, which I appreciate many people would find hard to live with. I've got preparation down to a fine art: pasta is boiled up once or twice a week, and used for lunch with a bought sauce in a jar or pesto, heated in the microwave at work.

Mornings are toast, evenings are usually a wrap and salad.

One of my luxuries is a tomato with the evening wrap, not super ecologically sound, but on the other hand now I've got the system working there's almost no waste: everything that comes in is eaten and I only have to empty my tiny compost bag once a week, because otherwise it would climb out of the cupboard itself; most of it is apple cores and tea bags...

I guess I'm fortunate in being (mostly) at home these days, and that i was taught to cook by my mum, who trained in a professional kitchen. So yes, I'm not exactly Ms Average in this respect.

One thing that's been great for making the best out of ingredients is a crock pot. It's equally good for soups, pasta sauces, chillies, curries and the like. It's a "fling stuff in and leave it" kind of thing which takes a lot of guesswork out of cooking. Even a basic can of tomatoes, a chopped onion and some seasonings becomes a vehicle for deliciousness.

I do eat a lot less meat than I used to, and for some things e.g. lasagne, chilli, curries, I actually prefer the veggie option.

 

[Arrowfoot]

Some years back while working in London for some unplanned reason I stopped stocking the fridge. I would buy groceries for the day on the way back from work. As write this , my top - the freezer is bare. The bottom - the fridge has 3 green apples bought yesterday, a small box of longans that I bought at an Asian supermarket today, a small of portion of cheese, small milk bottle, plus some drinks.

I have since lost weight, my food expenses have been reduced considerably and fittest since the age of 22. I have since discovered some healthy food types such as the cheaper protein rich lentils and pulses.

I realised that stocking the fridge is a habit and I suspect in my mind it gave me a sense of food security. And for some unknown reason the fridge is stocked with a wide range of food stuff, healthy and not so healthy.

 

[ColinJ]

Once the UK season is over, the strawberries stayed at £2, but the punnets shrunk to 227g (weird quantity I know, but that's what it was).

Spooky... I was thinking that the other day but eventually realised why it was chosen - it is the metric equivalent of half a pound. The worst of both worlds - a silly number in a sensible system of units, equivalent to a sensible number in a silly system of units!

 

[Chris S]

No heating at all, turned it off last November, OK I am living in the south of England so that helps.

Is that why you chose 'numbnuts' as your user name?

 

[Reynard]

Spooky... I was thinking that the other day but eventually realised why it was chosen - it is the metric equivalent of half a pound. The worst of both worlds - a silly number in a sensible system of units, equivalent to a sensible number in a silly system of units!

Aaaargh!!! I'm officially now something of a plonker... I really should have figured that one out, given I'm always converting backwards and forwards from metric to imperial etc with most units. Because 227 is indeed half of 454...

Need to go stand in the corner with a dunce's cap.

 

[Time Waster]

Just to say; you do not have to be a shareholder to have B4RN.

That is optional.

Our B4RN is brilliant - most villages round here have it now.

Cost £150 for the router install and connection which was fully reimbursed through a Gov' funding scheme.

Very fast, very stable and dirt cheap at £30 pm.

Are you sure the scheme cannot be extended to your location - ours covers a pretty large multi-village area.

Sure. Checked their website again and my village and even the next which was in planning stage last year is no longer even listed at all! All details covering my village have disappeared.

Although the map shows live to the boundary of the village and a very narrow strip that goes from the green live area outside my village boundary down parallel to my road but other side of the railway line to the estuary then along it to downhill from the next village.

My parents house is showing on the exact boundary of the green live strip and the purple planning around it. Their road is actually like a u shape with a straight road leading to it. Most of it is in the green except their sure of the u but the end where their house is goes back in green. However my dad checked with B4RN and he been told there's no installation there. The map is not what is actually in place. It's to promote them and gain interest from new areas hence showing green close to new areas and purple "planning" areas even further out.

It's a shame as I've heard it's very reliable. Since I looked into B4RN last year we had BT and openreach putting out letters through various village institutions to gain interest and people logging interest in their fast cable to house running at 950 instead of B4RN 1000. Apparently if a rural area got a threshold of households logging interest in it the government gives openreach a grant to install or gives part of the cost. In our village I've heard of period who have had it installed so it looks like we were successful I getting people to log interest.

So I'm thinking we might just get the BT openreach offering rather than waiting for b4rn to come here.